The present invention relates generally to mobile air decontamination and purification units.
There are currently a wide range of technologies that are used to decontaminate, purify and/or filter air. Within building structures (e.g., commercial buildings, hospitals, residential dwellings, etc.) the purification and filtering systems are sometimes built into a central heating, air conditioning and ventilation (HVAC) system. However, many buildings structures do not have central HVAC systems and often those with central HVAC systems include some level of filtering, but not much if any air purification or decontamination abilities. Therefore, there are a wide variety of applications where it is desirable to provide an air filtering, purification and/or decontamination unit that is suitable for treating the air in a room.
In some applications such as in infectious disease units of a hospital, it may be very desirable to provide room air treatment system that is arranged to inactivate (i.e. kill) airborne biological objects (e.g., microorganisms and viruses) in addition to filtering the air. It many applications, it is desirable to provide a room air handling unit that can effectively remove volatile organic compounds (VOCs) for health or comfort reasons. There are also a number of applications that require a high level of filtering (e.g., HEPA or ULPA filtering) for the room. Of course, there are a number of applications in which it is desirable to provide two or more of these features.
To effectively perform these types of air decontamination, purification and/or filtering tasks, it is often important that the air handling unit be arranged to handle a relatively high airflow rate. It is also preferable that the unit be designed to help insure an airflow pattern within the room that is conducive to effectively circulating the air within the room in a manner that helps increase the probability that: (1) all of the air within the room is treated on a regular basis; and (2) a desirable air flow pattern is established within the room. Very few existing air handling units address these needs, although there are some that do. One room air handling unit that is designed to address these issues is described in International Application No. PCT/FR04/02309, which corresponds to U.S. application Ser. No. 10/571,558 (both of which are incorporated herein by reference). Although the devices described therein work well and a variety of other air handling unit designs exist, there are continuing efforts to improve the design of room and space air handling devices to meet the needs of particular application. By way of example, one problem that is frequently encountered in large airflow rate air handling devices is that they can be relatively noisy and there are continuing efforts to reduce the noise generated by such devices. Another area of concern relates to the ease of maintenance and ease with which the air handling units can be cleaned.